Confab management disowns tenure elongation memo

The secretariat said “neither President Goodluck Jonathan nor any of his associates or aides both within and outside the conference circle has made any representation directly or indirectly or has spoken to any member of leadership or delegate to the conference on the issue canvassed by Osung.” Delegate Osung addressed a press conference Friday calling […]

The secretariat said “neither President Goodluck Jonathan nor any of his associates or aides both within and outside the conference circle has made any representation directly or indirectly or has spoken to any member of leadership or delegate to the conference on the issue canvassed by Osung.”
Delegate Osung addressed a press conference Friday calling for 18 months tenure extension for the president and state governors and other elected officials arguing that elections in 2015 may not be feasible because of insecurity.
A statement by the conference Assistant Secretary on Media and Communications Akpandem James said though the delegate is entitled to his opinion, but it has been observed however that “certain members of the public have come to view the personal views of the delegate as having something to do with the conference. This is far from the truth.”
“That such a position by Chief Osung was never submitted to any of the 20 committees set up by the National Conference to deliberate on and make recommendations on critical issues that necessitated the call and eventual convening of the National Conference by the president,” the statement said.
The spokesperson said none of these committees either discussed or has made any recommendation or has even mentioned the issue of Presidential Declaration of a Moratorium in their reports as canvassed by Osung in the media.
He said also that conference “did not at any point make the issue of tenure extension for any elected official part of a term of reference of any of the 20 committees whose work were already completed before Chief Osung’s agenda was made public by him.”
He said the views expressed by Osung “regarding tenure extension for any elected official, based on any reasons cited by him, are entirely personal to him and must not be viewed or regarded to, in any way, have any anything whatsoever to do  with the National Conference or any of its committees.
“That such views were never expressed on the floor of the conference, which did not sit in plenary, as at the time the views were made public. It was never heard, never debated or discussed in any manner whatsoever in any of the committees whose reports are already with the management of the conference,” he said.